Japanese Patent Application Publication 2003-37700A proposes a system which includes a server and clients, each able to communicate with the server by utilizing HTTP, and in which any thumbnail (small image) that the server provides can be displayed on each client.
In the system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication 2003-37700A, when a text linked on the web browser of any client is selected, the server transmits an HTML file to the client. Thereafter, the server transmits the thumbnails (bit-map files) linked by the HTML file to the client.
The HTML file and the thumbnails linked by the HTML file are displayed by the web browser of the client. A list of the thumbnails received from the server is thereby displayed. (refer to, e.g., paragraphs [0079], [0083] and of Japanese Patent Application Publication 2003-37700A.)